Asheville Middle School
(Spruce Hill, NC) - Buncombe County

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At Asheville Middle School in Buncombe County, many teachers come from diverse backgrounds.

The school is also working with the local center for diversity education. In Reed Chapman's social studies class, center staff have helped create a curriculum that tackles issues of religious difference. Something in Common explores how students from this school discuss differences in the way they worship.

Ruben Orengo
Orchestra teacher

"The main thing is that being from a minority group, you just have to be yourself. I do what I do and you just do the best that you can."

"I see a lot of pride in their faces. And it brings me back to when I was doing it in 7^th and 8^th grade. And my teachers and how much fun I had and how much joy it was."

Reed Chapman
Social Studies teacher

"It's a mixed ability class. The lowest reading level I have is third grade level, and the highest is the college level.all in that one class.. We have a huge range of socio-economic backgrounds. We have kids with two parents that work and we have kids who live with their grandparents in public housing. So even though the class doesn't look incredibly diverse, they are pretty different. It makes discussions very interesting."

"Certainly when I was in middle school, the biggest issue was race. I went to a middle school that was traditionally a black middle school. They still stood up at every assembly and sang the Negro national anthem. It was a culturally-different school."

Debi Miles
Center for Diversity Education

"Any piece of curriculum you cover that has to do with diversity, you are able to structure the conversation so the issues about stereotyping and prejudice and privilege come up. Kids are smart enough that they learn over a period of years to make parallels and apply them to other things, and that has to do with racism, anti-Semitism and misogyny and all kinds of hate."

Angela Benton
Chorus teacher

"I think in order to teach a child, you have you walk in their shoes. I'm tired of people calling children bad; they are not bad. There are some root problems that we just don't always know about. You have to weed them out, so you can bring that child up and make them successful in this world."

"These kids are our future, and if we don't push them along now, who will?"